~ Slip between the covers

Asexuality

Believe it or not I saw a link to this post on Asexuality on Facebook. It had been posted by a gay friend of mine! Which was a head-scratcher but oh well.

Turns out Huffington Post has a six-part series on Asexuality. What is it? What are the options? What are the issues with it? Basically they are people that do not experience sexual attraction.

Unlike celibacy, which people choose, asexuality is an intrinsic part of who we are. Asexuality does not make our lives any worse or any better, we just face a different set of challenges than most sexual people. There is considerable diversity among the asexual community; each asexual person experiences things like relationships, attraction and arousal somewhat differently.

That was definitely a new twist for me. I’ve always been on the opposite end of non-attraction. Ever since the hormones hit in high school, I’ve been hella sexually attracted and can’t imagine being otherwise. In fact, all those menopause hoo-doo voo-doos about women losing all sexual interest scare the hoola out of me! What would my life be without sex? I can’t even imagine.

But of course, Asexuality is different. It’s more like not feeling an attraction or not feeling like one needs to have sex at all either for enjoyment or to further cement a relationship, or perhaps only having sexual contact in a very minimal way. There’s lots of ways I can think about this, but as far as fiction goes, I have to say the asexual men are hotter! Take Spock for instance. Talk about not interested (most of the time) and boy was that attractive to most gals 🙂

And I’m not so sure that most paranormal (I’m thinking Sherrlyn Kenyon here) or other genre romance heroes don’t start out that way in the book. Usually they’ve cut themselves off from love and sex for so long … they seem almost asexual to me. But of course that’s different. Deep inside they want it. The asexuals don’t.

But I wonder if we’ll see a new trend in romance books – the happy asexual pairing – cropping up soon.

What would it look like? Would I read it without the hot sex? That remains to be seen…. Has anybody else heard of this phenomenon?

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11 thoughts on “Asexuality”

Hi there. I am asexual. In fact, I was mentioned in the first article in the series. Nice post, but there’s a little something I’d like to point out.

“It’s more like not feeling an attraction or not feeling like one needs to have sex at all either for enjoyment or to further cement a relationship, or perhaps only having sexual contact in a very minimal way.”

Not quite. It’s like this. There are many kinds of attraction, and we all have varying amounts of each in all of our relationships, whether they be romantic or not. There’s sexual attraction, the “I want to bone” one. Romantic attraction, the romantic love one. Physical attraction, or “I would cuddle the heck out of that person one. Aesthetic attraction, where one enjoys the beauty of a person. And (I don’t know the word for it) friendship attraction. We asexuals can have all the same kinds of relationships as anyone else, including sexual, for many reasons. We just basically don’t see sex as a need in a romantic relationship. There are some, of course, that are simply not romantically interested either, but that’s a different thing that can happen whether or not you are asexual.

To put it simply, asexuals see sex as not needed, but there are many good reasons to have it, and many asexuals are not against it. Some are in sexual relationships and are happy in those relationships. We have all the same issues of other relationships plus some extra things to overcome when it comes to romance..

Eva,
I can see asexuality finding some play in alternative/niche romance genres, but not sure it could succeed in mainstream or erotic romance. Even when the bedroom door is closed sexual tension is a key element in romance.

Think of reading a romance that looks much like the relationship between Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory. Most women romance readers would find that unsatisfying.

However, I believe there is a reader for every book and if there is a growing asexual community then it is likely we will see fiction bubble up that reflects their struggles to find happiness within the existing social structure. Not unlike you mentioned, a more probable scenario is that an asexual hero or heroine would be portrayed as experiencing a journey from one state to another, i.e. from asexual to sexual. Which, i’d say, is unfair to those who identify this way.

I’d root for an accurate depiction of asexual lifestyles and relationships simply because I want everyone to have their HEA, but then I do write romance. 🙂

Wouldn’t that be what is called “sweet” or “inspirational” romance? Where the hero and heroine are attracted to each other, but it never seems to cause them any sexual angst. They are too busy proclaiming their intentions to stay “pure” until marriage, after which miraculously, they are supposed to receive enlightenment on HOW to do WHAT and what they enjoy, as well as how to pleasure each other. And all without even talking about what they like! Sounds like a formula for an asexual relationship to me.

So many women I know decide after they have kids, (perhaps they just “endured” so they’d have kids?) that they are “done with that sort of thing”. For years I figured that maybe they just didn’t have a good partner, or maybe their man wasn’t listening to what they enjoy, or they didn’t know enough to tell him what they want. At any rate, they claim to not even be interested in sex anymore.

Like you, I can’t imagine still being me, without constantly thinking up sexual situations, or making jokes about what to me is one of the true pleasures of being alive. If my partner wasn’t any good, I’d still be pleasuring myself!

This is, by the way, the main reason I counseled my kids NOT to be virgins when they get married. What if they wait until marriage then find out that the other person is happy with twice a year, and they want twice a week? Or vice-versa? Everyone has a sexual appetite, and apparently for some it’s very small. For others of us it’s voracious. Better to find out before you get married, and invite God and families to witness what you both will be unhappy and unsatisfied in before long. Or you’ll stay together long enough to produce kids, then either one will stray, or become bitter, neither will be able to change and become what the other person wants and needs, and divorce hurts everyone involved.

It’s a crazy world. I always thought the holding out till marriage was mostly a religious constraint, but maybe not. It’s entirely possible the asexuals have very low sex drives. I can’t imagine being that type of person. They probably can’t imagine being me!

Asexuality may not just be a lifelong thing. Personal experience says events, usually traumatic, as well as illness and other hormonal changes can cause people to become asexual. Whether they can cope with choosing to relate to the other person in a long standing relationship after this change is problem faced by more than you think.

Eva, what complicates things is that humans have a very large temporal element to all our responses. Not only do we remember, like Pavlov’s dogs, we also have the ability to conceptualise similar events and forecast future events. Anxiety being the strongest example of our ability to imagine forward in time. Although, I’ve got to look in to the cultural thing a bit more; it is an aspect I look at in other areas, so why not here!

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